HSU IT Department

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this amazing opportunity. Srsly :)

"The American Shakespeare Center, a regional theater company in Staunton, Virginia, is looking to stage new plays as companion pieces to William Shakespeare's classics -- all 38 of them.

'We're looking for remarkable playwrights from all walks of life. Do you have a great play that vibes off of Shakespeare's canon? Can you write a great play to be a companion piece to one of Shakespeare's plays? We want to see it.'"

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape this offer. Get thee to a keyboard!!

Ah, cozy mysteries -- those wonderful oh-so-English mysteries, where tea and toast are sipped and nibbled, there's a cameo by a vicar, and the corpses are as neat and tidy as the gardens. Such fun to read and so satisfying, since the guilty party is generally someone who richly deserves being caught and convicted.

Ah, but have you ever written one? If so, now's your chance to get published! Minotaur Books is holding a best first mystery competition. Hop on over and give it a shot.

(Note: If I didn't know better, I'd suspect shiv5468 of having authored that book shown on the left under a nom de plume, because hey, peacocks!)

So I've started roughing out various ideas for my sshg_giftfest recipient, thinking about the different prompts, how they might be fleshed out, where they might go, how I can work in various elements. And I'm in so much trouble. Because I want to write All The Things. In fact multiple versions of All The Things. Seriously, I have at least seven different stories that are all tugging at my sleeve and whining, "Write me!" "No, write me!!" "Shut up, she's going to write ME!!"

This is a good thing, right? Right??

Submissions are open for two themed anthologies from Hic Dragones press:

Into the Woods -- "From magical places steeped in mysticism to evil foreboding places of unspeakable terror, the forest is a place of secrets, a place of knowledge, a place of death, and a place of life. But it is also a vulnerable place easily lost to the chainsaw and the drill. Our fascination with what may lie within the woods is an enduring one. Bewilder us, scare us, entertain us. Take us on a journey… into the woods..."

Nothing -- "Bleak landscapes, empty hearts, insignificant lives, dystopian futures, extinction, limbo, uncertainty, death. A beautiful void or a horrific state of being. The simple complexity of nothingness..."

It's a non-paying market but hey, at least you can say you got published :)

Short on prompts for that next fest? Desperate for an idea for your next original fic? Try PLOTTO: THE MASTER BOOK OF PLOTS!

The author, William Wallace Cook (1867-1933), knows whereof he speaks: he wrote more than a hundred novels under at least two names for pulp publisher Street & Smith, with titles like At daggers drawn, or, A pearl beyond price and Fools for luck, or, Caught in a strange trap.

I can't wait to track down a copy of this :)

Reveals are up over at mini_fest and happy_trekmas, so the last of the four fics I wrote for December fests can now be unveiled! (I know, I know, you've all been waiting, haven't you??)

nursedarry, whose fault it is that I'm here on LJ at all (smooches her), persuaded me to write for happy_trekmas this year. I wrote "Walk Beside Me", a series of missing scenes (all canon-compliant, natch!) that show the growth of the friendship between James T. Kirk and Spock. You can read it on the fest's LJ site or over on AO3. Rating is G, word count is 4156, and it's TOS all the way, no rebootin' AU here, nosiree bub.

For mini_fest this year I tried a pairing I've never done before (Severus and Petunia) and wrote a story called "A Part of Yesterday." One commenter was kind enough to say that "you made me like the horrid Petunia" :) It's angsty, of course, and bittersweet, but I enjoyed writing it very much since it was something I'd never done before, and I'm pleased with the way it came out. You can read it on the fest's LJ site or over on AO3. Rating is Teen/PG-13, word count is 6651, and it's entirely canon-compliant, so don't expect a happy ending.

(I've also now got my hoggywartyxmas spoof of "The Night Before Christmas" posted on AO3.)

Every so often I go on a binge of re-reading my own fics. And almost every time, I end up thinking the same thing: "These are pretty good. But...did I really write these??" In other words, it feels like I'm reading someone else's work. It's a little unnerving. I can't quite figure it out.

So, for those of you who write fanfic, do you go back and re-read your own old stories? How often? Is there a particular concatenation of circumstances that causes you to do so? How does it make you feel when you do? How do you find that you react to them -- do they feel like your own work or someone else's?

Now, for those of you who also write original fic: same questions.

I've been AWOL lately due to being occupied co-writing a fic with someone. This is something I've never done before, and I found it peculiarly satisfying. Partly that was because the other person mapped out the plot and all I had to do was write scenes for it (o lazy me!) but also partly because it was so much fun to see the pieces coming together, to craft the transitions so it read seamlessly (or at least so we hope), and to get immediate feedback on chunks of writing before it was anywhere near finished. I'm quite proud of the end product, which turned out to be by far the longest fic I've ever worked on, and look forward to eventually being able to cop to my role in it when the fest reveals go up.

Refinery29 has compiled a millennials' reading list entitled The Book Bucket List: Books to Tackle Before You're Thirty. I've read fourteen of them, which I guess makes me 28% of a millennial? I'm not sure what criteria they used, since Harry Potter is the first one the list, which is nice but I'm not sure what's particularly millennial about it. Quite a few more are on my ever-growing to-read list, though, so perhaps I'll get to them eventually. Maybe before I turn sixty.

In more book-related news, I recently finished Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, which I absolutely adored. (Is it a coincidence that her name is the same as my favorite sushi item?) Not only are the characters three-dimensional and interesting, they're dealing with serious issues (bipolar disorder, binge drinking, etc.) yet in the end its a heart-warming story about family and friendship, and remembering what really matters in our lives. And its treatment of fandom and fanfic is a delight -- what joy to read a story that treats fic writing with the respect it deserves, and recognized the important place it fills in so many of our hearts!

Finally, I have to share this: Ursula Le Guin's acceptance speech at the recent National Book Awards. I have no words for how very cool this is. Not only is Le Guin an amazing writer, she's also thoughtful and passionate about our craft.


"...the moment that turned attendees' heads...belonged to Ursula K. Le Guin. In
accepting an award for distinguished contribution to American letters, Le Guin
delivered an impassioned defense of science fiction — and of writers in general..."
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(transcript available here)

sshg_promptfest was another sterling collection this year; I'm only sorry that my July was such that I wasn't able to give it the attention it deserves. I did manage to look at and respond to all the art, and I hope to work my way through the fics over the next few weeks. Many of my favorite contributors participated, and I'm looking forward to enjoying the results of their creative fabulosity!

Now that the Big Reveal is up, I can admit to being the author of "The Heart the Adder Gave Him." Thanks to palathene for a wonderful prompt that gave me lots of leeway to explore what it might mean for Hermione to suffer a prophetic vision. I'm rather proud of this one :)

Title: The Heart the Adder Gave Him (LJ) (AO3)
Rating: PG
Summary: Hermione has made a prophecy about Snape, most of which she doesn’t understand. Snape understands part of it all too well. But what can the rest of it mean?